Islands In The Sun
by MrMoony
Summary: A nomadic young man finds himself stranded in the American south on a journey to find a long seperated friend.
1. Default Chapter

Author's Note: This is my first fiction. Exciting, yes? Posting fan fiction is just something that has never come into my head (though not for lack of leisure hours). While I would prefer to complete a story and then add it to the archives, there are factors working against my better wishes:  
a)I do not have a computer of my own to save my story to, so it is wise for me to upload bit by bit. Floppy discs are a little out of my price range.  
b)I don't know if this is a story I'll ever be able to complete, so might as well get it out while I can. Catharsis, and all. This truly is a perfect waste of time.  
c)I write these chapters in short bursts (the small minutes of my lunch break, to be precise), I have to upload them when I can.  
Of course, the negative outcome being that some of these chapters may often be 'revised', re-uploaded, whenever the notion hits me. Who knows how this story will end? I shall attempt to level off my inconsistencies in order to avoid confusion.   
  
Thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoy what I've written.  
  
  
  
Islands In The Sun   
Chapter 1  
  
Daimon Stamitos woke up cold and hungry, matted from head to toe with a mixture of grass and mud. He lifted his soggy head from a patch of moss, somewhat afraid to explore his present territory. It was not unusual for Daimon to awake in a bed of greenery, looking much like a rustic sort of crème cake. The coup de grace was the layer of foliage that had collected inside the hollow of his sleeping mouth.   
  
Upon realizing fully his destitute inhabitation, Daimon jumped towards the sky in a fit of jubilation. For these were not English leaves. This he remembered from his last herbology class- they were of sub tropical origin and they were resting in his very mouth.  
  
Quickly, he shot a glance around to assure himself he had not once again crawled into the South American mammals section of Regent's Park Zoo.   
  
No such misfortune.   
  
"These are not English leaves!" He whipped them around his head, enthusiastically. Success. Florida at last. Thank whatever-power-there-may-be, he'd made it. The last two weeks had found him bounced from pickle to pickle-next. Unsurprising as well, since uncertainty was the only common denominator in Daimon's life. However! Having been jettisoned from moving vehicles (plane, train and automobile) only over the last twenty-four hours. He was glad to be finally arrived.   
  
Assuring himself of the possibility for relaxation, he began to circle the ground, tentatively looking for personal belongings. A patch of clothing here, a pack of crackers there. Maybe some floss? Never any floss. He snapped his fingers. And yet his most useful item! Daimon reflected momentarily on the fact that he never got to see the end of a twine of floss, and pondered that perhaps some great mystery of the universe might be hidden at the end of one. Hidden from him. Eternally.  
  
He fidgeted his hands in his pockets and brought out a stick of gum. He looked up at the sky, "This survived a drop of nearly a mile? And still no floss. Well." He mused, optimistically, "At least this time, I'm wearing pants."   
  
He sighed, picked up his bag, and walked towards the road. 


	2. 2

Islands In The Sun   
Chapter 2  
  
Stuffy. Smokey. Full of hot, humid, lethargically moving air, and--  
  
SLAP!  
  
"Mosquitoes."   
  
Stamitos stared pensively at the glass of amber liquid before him, gold and brown as his eyes. He drank in a quick mouthful, feeling guilty about it. He had hoped the liquid would fill him to the top, leaving him all the same color and all the same hazy feeling. Though, he knew, that he presently required his perception. The men in the corner had been watching him for two hours.  
  
He shivered, inadvertently, and smoothed his hand over the withered bag collapsed on the stool   
beside him.   
  
"What's your problem, buddy?" Questioned the crumpled old man. He was leering over the bar at Daimon. This barkeeper must be around seventy, Daimon mused to himself as he sipped placidly at his drink. Of course, he was making this assessment upon the man's age, judging from the thin hands the keep had slapped threateningly on the table dividing them. They were white and veiny, like notebook paper soaked in water and pinched in all the wrong places.   
  
This guy was ancient and bearing down on him as if he had judged Daimon to be just some sad youngster ungracefully stumbling though a mid-life crisis. While Daimon could not refrain from admiring his spirit, he wondered if this barkeeper, who was denying him the benefit of the doubt, would even guess that he, Daimon Stamitos, was just barely thirty?   
  
Just barely, even.   
  
Looking at the man's crumbled hands, and then glancing down at his own, he wondered if this man felt as old as he did. What it boiled down to, was that Daimon admired his spirit, enough to not turn him into one of the mosquitoes he was currently slapping into jelly.   
  
This time, last year, such a thought would have never even entreated upon his darkest wandering thoughts. When such an annoyance was entreated upon his character, he would not have even questioned it- he would have accepted it, and he still would have cared-- He would have cared for the long-term well-being of this one angry gentleman. Now, Stamitos questioned everything, and he   
cared even less.   
  
"They're watchin' you, y'know." The keeper nudged roughly at his customer, sending a splash of   
luke-warm drink into the table. Daimon's eyes drifted lazily a little to the right. It was   
useless. He could not recognize who it was behind him. And he dare not turn around for a set of reasons:   
  
One. If he turned around, they would definitely recognize who and what he was, and then, also...   
  
Two. Maybe they were just trailing him for curiosity's sake, with a date for the capture, set   
sometime in the near future. The 'future', Daimon had come to recognize, was the time in which   
resided the measure of moments between 'narrowly missed' and 'eventually caught'. If he did not   
turn around, he could sneak out of the bar in a means-inconspicuous, perhaps, say, by climbing   
through a bathroom window. He might just survive to tell the tale (to whom, he wasn't quite   
sure). But if he moved an inch, if they knew he noticed them, if he let them -know he knew they   
noticed them- by turning around- he was as good as canned spam.  
  
Sip.   
  
Then, he would no longer move even an inch for the rest of his life.   
  
The old man's revolting sneer was creating dribble that sploshed into the glass, "I'm meeting   
someone." Daimon stated, wearily. Yes. He had come to the conclusion that he was not going to be   
moved.   
  
"Is your name 'someone', too? Hmm?"  
  
"My name's Rem-- Stamitos. Will you leave me alone?" Stamitos dragged a scarred hand down his   
face washing new weariness over his eyes, "Please?" He had forgotten to ask nicely, "I wouldn't   
want to be impolite--" The words were robbed from him by the crack of thick wood upon his   
cranium.  
  
That was one quick old man!  
  
And he had seemed so friendly, too. Deep inside. Hadn't he been a not-so-bad person?  
  
Quickly, after having reclaimed his vision, he realized it was not the old man who had laid him   
down flat.   
  
"That's not protocol! Beatings are not protocol!" Whined a voice from the back of a massive shape   
attempting to configure within Daimon's frame of blurred perception. They were two cardboard   
cut-outs dancing before his eyes.  
  
"Honestly, Muffins!" The larger figure chided.   
  
Daimon looked over the stars flying around his nose towards the spindly young man shaking behind   
the slightly more offensive looking gentleman with the walking stick in hand.  
  
Stamitos winced and crossed his eyes at a thin wooden apparatus now pointed between his eyes, in that oh-so-familiar un-friendly fashion.   
  
"Muffins? Your name's, 'muffins'?"   
  
"That's Mr. Muffins, to you!" He snapped, before ducking back behind his cohort.   
  
"Muffins!!!" Boomed a voice from the shadows. The entire bar rang out with echoed laughter, "You got knocked out by a guy named Muffins?"  
  
Daimon covered his head against a deafening squeal of high fear.   
  
"Wizard's Toes!! It's Crazy Cass Cadarn!"   
  
Daimon dove for the floor.   
  
The large administrative man, muttered feebly, "What- I don't see any--"  
  
"BONZAI!!!"  
  
A flailing mass of leather clad limbs flew from the ceiling to make an acrobatic-like landing of   
questionable grace upon the skull of, said, massive adversary.  
  
There was a "scuffle". Stamitos scampered across the floor in furious pursuit of the long wooden   
stick that was flying across the dirty floor, just inches from his frantic grasp, "Accio! Accio!"   
Daimon summoned futilely. He finally caught the object as it sailed between the wrinkled old hands of the keeper huddling under his bar table.   
  
Daimon smiled wearily, sympathetically, "Don't worry, it will be over soon." He heard a scream   
and flipped around, wand outstretched and at the ready.   
  
"Oh Please! What are you going to do with me!?" Muffins screamed. The larger man was passed out,   
and Cadarn had his lackey down with a fist in his hair and a boot in his back.   
  
"I'm Crrrazzzy Cadarn! So, I'm going to use your own wand!"  
  
The much-weaker man below him cried and flailed, "No! Mercy! What are you gonna do!"  
  
"What am I gonna do?" Cadarn leaned down at him, "What am I gonna do?!"  
  
Deafening screams.   
  
"I'm gonna stick it up yer nose!" He cackled wickedly.   
  
Scream, scream, scream- The man in black lithely jumped off and let poor little Muffin bolt out   
the door. Doubled up with laughter, Cadarn sunk to his knees. "Oh! Rich! Too good..." He wiped   
away a forming tear.   
  
Daimon rose from his squatting council with the trembling service. He dusted himself off, first.   
Then, he turned slowly towards his untouched bag, picked it up gingerly, and held it at his side.   
He, now, made a point to sound unamused, "His own wand?"  
  
"If he weren't so insanely delirious with irrational fear- he'd have realized it was a coffee   
stir.." There was a pause. Cass began to dance around the disrupted bar.   
  
Daimon stared at him blandly, "His fear was irrational because he judged you and did not know   
you. Had he known you, personally, his fear would have been completely justified..."  
  
"Ricooo... Suaaavee... Ricooo..."  
  
They burst out the doors of the bar: Cass Cadarn first, Daimon Stamitos a far-second.   
  
"Ricooo... Suaaavee... Ricooo..." Cass was moving around in a gyrating fashion, with his hand set   
firmly on his belt buckle. Perhaps he even thought it was dancing.  
  
Daimon hadn't seen Cass in decades, well, up until very recently. The man had gotten thinner. He   
seemed to continue on with this unnatural preoccupation involving the upkeep of his hair, a trait   
so focused that it seemed to defy natural law- but, he also appeared slightly happier and even   
optimistic. Frankly, he seemed to be enjoying the tropical culture.   
  
Smack!  
  
Cass turned around and looked at Daimon oddly.  
  
"Mosquitoes..." Daimon muttered. Cass shrugged and went back to his confident strut, "I don't   
notice them, anymore."   
  
Ah, how the tables had turned. 


End file.
